


Mr Gold Remembers

by Andropax



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 12:23:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1648508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andropax/pseuds/Andropax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief sketch of the life of Mr Gold, lawyer, landowner, and pawnbroker, and what changed on October 23, 2011.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr Gold Remembers

He wasn’t a greedy man, exactly. Those around him had a tendency to confuse wealth and power with greed, at least when held onto as rigidly as Mr Gold held onto his.

Perhaps sometimes blurry images rose in his mind of a lanky, brown-eyed orphan blowing on his hands to keep them from freezing; perhaps he still remembered the way his stomach felt after four days with not a scrap of food; perhaps sometimes the sneers rang in his ears of people with furs and full bellies.

No, Mr Gold wasn’t greedy; he simply thought of money as his security. If he had money, he didn’t have to worry about what he was going to eat or what people were going to think of him. He never explained this to anyone, though, because Mr Gold was also completely alone.

He knew everyone, and everyone knew him. With the exception of the mayor and the crazy hermit on the outskirts of town, everyone owed him something. Everyone feared him. Everyone knew what it meant when he knocked on your door.

But no one cared for him. He went home to no one. He’d never been married; he’d been the only child of generations of only children. No one wished him a happy birthday; no one invited him for dinner; he never got sick, but if he had, there would have been no cards, no flowers, no visitors. People only came to him voluntarily to ask a favour or plead for mercy. He was alone.

Not, you understand, that he minded terribly; occasionally a pretty smile or a pair of blue eyes would send vague longings through him for something he couldn’t define, some barely-remembered past life where there had been a hand to touch and something more than a gold-handled cane to lean on; on the whole, though, his routine, his power, his house and his money satisfied him as much as any man can be satisfied.

He did care for his money, treating it well and investing it wisely. He liked to think about acquiring more of it. Though the phrase “rent is due” scared most people, to him rent day was nothing but pleasing.

Such was Mr Gold: solitary, rich, and terrifying in his unassuming quiet. He feared nothing, he wanted nothing, and he often said nothing. He liked tea, and ice cream, and ketchup on his hamburgers, and he hated nuns; he played the cello and the piano and made deals and money. Maybe there wasn’t any real harm in him; maybe there was nothing beneath that polished, gentlemanly calm but more polished, gentlemanly calm. Maybe he didn’t intend to be sinister.

* * *

Mr Gold woke up that morning, pleasant thoughts of the rent buzzing in his mind. He thought he could feel a new sort of keenness in the air, as if change had come during the night.

In the spirit of this, the little man chose a particularly eye-catching blue and white checked shirt for his suit. Silk, of course, and luxuriously comfortable, but still uncharacteristic.

Mr Gold strolled down the street, glancing up at Marco the carpenter who stood, as usual, on his ladder, hammering nails into a sign that preferred the ground to its perch. They exchanged no smiles or nods or words, only a brief glance; a vague acknowledgement of the other’s existence and presence.

Dr Hopper came first; he paid comparatively little for his tiny second-floor office, though his psychiatric services were highly sought after by every sort of person. Mr Gold, of course, only ever went to him for the rent. The doctor had to dig around a bit to find the necessary cash (you always paid Mr Gold in cash; he liked the feel of it in his fingers). His absent-mindedness had nearly cost him his office more than once.

The day went well. For one interesting moment, it looked as though the nuns had misplaced their payment, but unfortunately they produced it at last, one of the novices having accidentally knocked it into the trash.

His last stop came at 8:14 as usual: Granny’s Bed and Breakfast. Granny’s granddaughter Ruby worked there and wore only enough clothing to prevent her arrest; they also paid the most of all his tenants. As a red-blooded man, he liked to look at Ruby; as Mr Gold, he liked their money finding its way into his pocket.

Today, though, someone else stood there too. Blonde, shapely, leather jacket. As he entered, Granny asked for her name.

“Swan,” she said. “Emma Swan.”

Emma.

_“We made a deal! I want her name!”_

_“Emma. Her name is Emma.”_

_“Eeemmmma.” He let the word roll around on his tongue, savouring it. Emma._

_How many times had he scribbled the name on that piece of paper, for just such a moment?_

 He felt a surge of blood to his head and he remembered everything. His heart beat frantically. Such a rush of memories! Beautiful, horrible, colourful memories. The world had been more colourful then, through those eyes; millions of variations of blinding, terrible brightness, enough to make your head ache, enough to drive you crazy. Even the blackness of prison was too bright; even darkness had colour. These eyes saw only shadows.

He smiled.

“Emma.”

She turned in surprise.

There she was…Snow White with blonde hair. Almost pretty, save for the anger in her eyes and the lines around her mouth. Her mother’s chin, her father’s ears. She had a determination about her that she doubtless got from both of her dauntless parents. Emma.

“What a lovely name,” he said.

“Thanks.” She half-smiled at the compliment. Smiling improved her appearance a lot, and he grinned back.

“It’s all here,” interrupted Granny, practically shoving a roll of bills into his face.

He’d almost forgotten about Granny—Widow Lupus. He remembered who she was, and even she didn’t. What a wonderful sensation of power. He would miss it when this little girl broke the curse.

“Yes, yes, of course it is, dear, thank you.” He took the money; it didn’t seem as important now as it had only seconds ago. He barely needed it. He would always have it if he did need it; all he had to do if he ever ran out was go to the Queen and say please.

He turned his eyes on Emma and memorised her every feature, drinking in the contours of her face and the darkness at the roots that betrayed her natural hair colour. This girl would bring him to Bae.

“You enjoy your stay…Emma.”

* * *

 

The light looked different now. Everything looked different. He looked at Ruby and saw, not the town whore, but a powerful monster that (except him and the Queen) had killed more than everyone else in the town combined. He remembered the stout old woman coming and demanding that he give her something to protect her granddaughter, barely a teenager, from the ravages of this condition. Not begging, demanding, completely unafraid of him.

Now he saw the fear in her eyes—in both of them. He’d never really appreciated it before. If anything, the weakling Mr Gold had vaguely wished there was a little less fear in at least the young waitress’s eyes.

Rumplestiltskin wished no such thing.

He strode out, the memories crowding in fast and thick now. I’ve won. I’m here. As soon as she breaks the curse, I’ll be free to go find my son, my boy, my Bae. Nothing more to do but wait. Nothing more to do but wait…

A loud mechanical click sounded above his head as he passed the clock tower. The minute hand had moved from 8:15 to 8:16.

He grinned nostalgically. He remembered that detail; a delicate thread of magic that had to weave almost invisibly through the rest of the curse, so that the Queen wouldn’t notice where it tapered off, but had to be strong enough to withstand almost thirty years of natural forces. It also had to be able to bend and stretch; to allow time in, but not out; to hold in and restrict everything, but flexible enough to not break at the slightest interruption, because nothing, not even this curse, could be perfect…

Rumplestiltskin hadn’t enjoyed making this curse. Even in his twisted mania and sadism, something about its darkness unnerved him. It had cost him a hundred thousand prices, tearing at the whimpering remainder of his soul. Still, he found himself filling with pride at his craftsmanship as he looked around. He’d ironed every crease and stitched every tear and concealed every loophole.

Bae, as a very young child, in the days before Milah took to drink and ultimately ran off with a pirate, used to crow when he felt he’d done something well, “Oh, the cleverness of me!” Rumplestiltskin never forgot that phrase. Oftentimes when events shaped themselves as he wished, he used to think of that, said in the high-pitched voice of a happy little boy.

Now, he muttered under his breath, looking at the clock and the town and the one or two people still about: “Oh, the clever cleverness of me.”

He abruptly stopped smiling, however, when he saw the fat old man loading roses into a truck.

Sir Maurice of Littletown, alias Moe French, flower monger.

_“He was cruel to her…”_

His pace quickened. He’d spent many evenings imagining in colourful detail the kinds of things he would do to Sir Maurice if he ever saw him again; the screams he would elicit from that doughy face; the blood he would draw for daring to harm so much as a golden brown hair on her head…

But not here, he realised, not now; not in the heat of the moment. This would take careful calculation, careful planning. If he knew anything about the Charming bloodline, he knew that that little girl would be starting trouble; she wouldn’t let anyone get away with much. Anyway, here he couldn’t turn people into snails when he wanted rid of them. He stopped himself just short of the van. Moe looked up in surprise and blanched when he saw who it was.

“Payment’s not due for another six weeks, Mister Gold,” he stammered, terrified.

Good. Let him be terrified. He won’t pay back that loan, and he will pay for what he did to my beautiful, beautiful Belle.

“Just a friendly reminder, Mr French,” he said, cheerfully. “Wouldn’t want you to forget. The terms of the loan are fairly specific.”

“I understand, Mister Gold,” he said.

_Belle and Bae. I’ve gone twenty eight years without thinking of either; I’ll never go another day without remembering both._


End file.
